


Gotta Get Back in Time

by Paraprosdokia (ChangeableConsistency)



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cameo by Joan of Arc, Clint and Peggy as Buddy Time Cops, Clint hates paperwork, Clint is really good at flirting, Clint’s sentences don’t run on they gallop, F/M, Gen, I meant terrible, M/M, Time Travel, did i say good?, fluff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28203504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeableConsistency/pseuds/Paraprosdokia
Summary: Clint Goes back in time to help Bucky recover his memories and gets sidetracked. Luckily Peggy has his back.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Peggy Carter, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 17
Kudos: 45





	Gotta Get Back in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainJimothyCarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJimothyCarter/gifts).



> Don't bet your future, on one roll of the dice  
> Better remember, lightning never strikes twice
> 
> -Gotta Get Back in Time by Huey Lewis and the News from the theatrical hit movie Back to the Future.
> 
> For and inspired by Jimothy. I know you’re having a bad day, love, hope this makes you smile.
> 
> (The thread that started it all:  
> https://twitter.com/paraprosdokiacc/status/1333498360838307840?s=12)

“—aaAAHH!” 

_Thump._

Huh. Dumpsters haven’t really changed that much in thirty years. 

Also: Gross.

“Come on, Buck, give me a hand. Fella just fell off the roof.”

Well, look, he was aiming _through time_ and he managed to land right next to Bucky, so really it’s Bucky’s fault he ended up in a dumpster this time.

“Uh, Steve, I don’t think—”

“Stop gawkin’ and help me!”

“I— _fine,”_ Clint sees Bucky mumble under his breath as he and Steve lean over to peer into the dumpster, something about not looking for trouble, and that might officially be the most words Clint’s seen from the man since he came in from the cold.

“Hi!” Clint says, popping up to his feet, “Don’t worry, I got it. You pull yourself out of one dumpster you’ve pulled yourself out of them all, amirite?”

And then, okay, he shows off a little, grabbing the edge of the bin and pulling himself up into a handstand before landing on his feet next to Steve and Bucky, “Tada!” 

Clint’s flourishing bow is only slightly ruined by the carefully unidentified and unfortunately soggy piece of garbage falling off from where it had stuck to his quiver onto the back of his neck before it hits the ground with a squelch. 

Double gross.

“I don’t suppose you guys have some place I can wash up before taking me to see Director— I mean Agent Carter?” 

“You know Peggy?” Steve asks doubtfully.

“Only from the history books, but she’s supposed to be my contact here. I don’t know. Coulson was all mysterious and ‘fate of reality’-y about it, so it’s probably pretty important but who can say, he says that a lot,” Clint does a perfect impression of Phil, safe in the knowledge that Tasha isn’t here to mock him for how terrible she (incorrectly) thinks it is, “‘Don’t touch the 084, Clint, you could tamper with the fate of reality!’ ‘Don’t break into that lab, Clint, you could tamper with the fate of reality!’ ‘Meh meh meh Clint, fate of reality!’ I mean, really, Tony already explained how there’s no risk of me being my own grandpa or killing him or whatever so I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Did you hit your head, sir?” Steve asks with concern.

“Why is everybody always asking me that? I’m fine. So, how’s about a shower, gorgeous?” Clint says with a grin at Bucky. 

Okay, so with all the flirting he had done back in the 21st getting no response from Mr. I Only Have Two Modes: Blank and Angry, Clint’s floored by the blush that creeps up Bucky’s face to stain his cheeks and oh my God is that a shy smile?

Clint is totally screwed. 

He had thought the resting murderface had been hot but this is downright adorable and Clint is defenseless against it. 

“We can probably let you use the barrack’s showers. Maybe get you some clean clothes?”

“I’m sure it just needs a wipe down with some soap and water,” Clint’s uniform has been through more AIM goo and alien gunk than Clint can shake a stick at, it’s probably fine. He lifts his left arm and smells the bright yellow patch on the back of his purple bracer, gaining disgusted looks from both Steve and Bucky, “Yeah okay. Kinda want to nail this first impression. And maybe get a second one with you, gorgeous,” Clint shooting finger guns at Bucky and giving him his most charming smile.

“That’s— I don’t— What?”

Steve slings his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and laughs, “It’s not often I see this guy tongue tied. He’s Bucky, I’m Steve.”

Bucky shrugs off Steve’s arm with a scowl and there’s the guy Clint’s been lusting after, and there’s definitely something wrong with him that it’s more attractive than the blush had been, “Clint. And it’s all good, I like the strong silent type.”

Blushing scowl wins Best Bucky Expressions hands down.

~~~

Clint’s uniform ends up being salvageable, which is good seeing as the only one onsite near Clint’s size is Steve and apparently _this_ Steve is even harder on his wardrobe than Clint is on his. 

The base isn’t on water rations but contrary to what _some_ people say, Clint can be considerate, and he gets away with stripping off his armored vest and ducking his head under a faucet; he’s not exactly in a hurry now that he’s, you know, a time machine and all— and don’t ask him to explain it it’s something to do with nanites and bioelectrical brain wave blah blah blah, he just knows if he thinks about it hard enough and jolts his adrenal whatsits he can time travel, but knowing him even that won’t stop him from being late. 

He looks up into the mirror and his hair is even more hedgehoggy than usual but at least it isn’t smeared with green gunk anymore and he slips his vest on over his so far still white tank top, sealing it up the side. He gives his hair one more half hearted swipe with the towel Bucky had wordlessly handed him and shrugs. That will have to do. 

Meeting Director— dammit, _Agent_ Carter goes better than he has any right to expect, in that she gives him a professional once over while he stammers and half way goes to a salute (um, what brain? WTF) before shaking her hand like an over enthusiastic golden retriever.

“It’s an honor to meet you ma’am,” he says while pumping her hand waaaay to much— Barton, you dummy, get a grip. Or stop gripping. Whatever, just let go of the woman’s damn hand.

He lets go and rubs the back of his neck, “Sorry, it’s just,” he shrugs and looks at Steve and Bucky, “Peggy Carter, you know?” And while Bucky looks unimpressed by his fanboying Steve totally gets it, he only has eyes for Peggy and is even more tongue tied around her than Clint is. 

He knew he liked Steve.

“And how exactly can I help you, Mr.?”

“Oh! Right! Agent Barton, ma’am. And um,” he looks at Steve and Bucky because while as Avengers they’ve been fully briefed opsec is a thing and they probably aren’t supposed to know that the SSR has a storehouse with bits of Hydra tesseract tech; he shrugs apologetically to Bucky and Steve, “Your eyes only, ma’am. Or, er, ears?”

“Gentlemen,” she says, giving Clint a curious look; he had the right SSR codes, he knows he did, Coulson made him repeat them enough times and he even made a little song about it, and okay, that look might be because he actually sang them but still, she knows he’s legit, or at least she’s going forward as if he is, “Give us the room.”

They’re technically in General— Colonel Phillips’ office, but it’s also the space set aside for private SSR briefings, and it’s probably a lucky break that she was the only one here because he’s pretty sure only she was supposed to hear the codes he sang at her, but hey, if he can’t trust Captain America and his faithful sidekick Bucky Barnes, (hah! Bucky can’t hurt him if he’s just _thinking_ it) then who can he trust?

“Well?

“I need an Arnimhilation 99L Assault Weapon?”

“A what?!”

“A Hydra gun? Well, technically just the battery thingy?”

“No, I heard you,” she says, looking at him skeptically, “I’m simply having a difficult time believing you’re authorized to even know they exist.”

“Oh, I know lots of things I’m not authorized to know exist,” is the totally wrong thing to say, which is probably why that’s exactly what comes out of his mouth.

“I need to check on this,” she says, picking up the phone.

“Wait,” she frowns at him, “It’s um, not going to be authorized now, but it will be?”

That gets him a look that he’s intimately familiar with, having seen it on every one of his teammates at one time or another and once for a week straight from Coulson, “Well, it’s cuz of how I’m from the future?”

“You’re from the future?” The look intensifies.

“Oh, did I not lead with that. Yep. Totally from the future. Marty McFlying it and all, sans DeLorean. Aw, man, a DeLorean would have been awesome. Do you think I could get Stark to build me one? He’s a car guy, I bet he’ll build me a DeLorean even though the time machine is in my brain or blood or whatever.”

“You know Howard?” And yeah, he can see where that would be her takeaway.

“Nah, his kid, Tony.”

“Howard has a child?” 

Wow, he thought she had looked dubious before.

“I mean, as far as I can tell he wasn’t the greatest dad,” Clint knows from daddy issues and Stark is basically the poster child for Never Hugged Me monthly, “But yeah.”

“I think you better start at the beginning. And try not to leave anything out this time.”

~~~

“Seriously?” Clint very much does not whine. 

Okay, maybe he’s whining a little. 

Or a lot. 

But still.

“ _Paperwork?”_

“Once you finish the After Action Report and the Acquisition of Classified Materials Form I can take you to the storeroom and not a second sooner.”

“Okay, but technically this is still the Before. From a couple different angles. So shouldn’t it be a Before Action Report?”

Her eyes narrow in a way that is eerily reminiscent of Tasha, “Fill out as much as possible and you can finish it when you get back.”

~~~

Peggy Carter is _so_ cool. 

Seriously, she’s been his personal hero since he heard about her in SHIELD basic training— and yeah, that was at least partially due to how often she went off book to ensure the mission was a success, though he hadn’t found out about that until he had hacked SHIELD’s database, but he only did _that_ to find out more information on her because of what they had revealed in the class. 

That and he wanted to know exactly what they had on him, which turned out to be a lot more than he was comfortable with; these days he’s glad for Coulson’s ability to ferret out every last detail on a mark, but he’s still a little resentful he once _was_ Coulson’s mark.

He’s musing on how Peggy (and how completely awesome is it that she said, ‘Call me Peggy’? Never in a million years would he have believed it, Tash is going to be Hulk green with envy) is kind of like a cross between Joan Jett and Joan of Arc while she’s on a step ladder in a warehouse that sadly looks more like a Target than the vast Indiana Jonesian set up he was hoping for but beggars and choosers after all, when she loses her balance as she’s pulling the Hydra gun off the shelf.

“Woah!” He says, darting in to catch her, except he’s still thinking about Joan of Arc and he must have done that thing with his heart or whatever because she’s in his arm with the gun in hers and Clint’s on his ass with an arm full of Peggy Carter in the middle of a battlefield filled with knights of some sort next to a tiny armored woman on a very large horse with a huge banner, “Oops.”

“Oops? What the bloody hell just happened?” 

~~~

Two weeks later they return to the warehouse a few minutes after they had disappeared, on their feet this time; Clint thinks he might be getting the hang of this. 

Clint’s vest has a deep score across the center of his chest (remind him to get Tony a fruit basket or something) and Peggy has a chain shirt on over a toga with the Hydra gun strapped to her back and a scimitar on her hip. 

Both of them are filthy and exhausted, but smiling. 

“That was brilliant!”

Clint let’s go of her hand, it _was_ pretty awesome. Clint’s up a longbow and down a couple arrows, which will probably lead to some very confused historians if they are ever found; he’s planning on framing one of the replacements he got from Domitian, kid knew his fletching. 

“I don’t know about you but I could use a beer and, like, a thousand showers; not necessarily in that order. 

“That sounds lovely, Clinton.”

“After you, Pegs,” he says with a courtly flourish, _just_ missing knocking what looks like a Tommy gun crossed by an octopus off of one of the lower shelves.

“Oh, and here,” she says, pulling the battery thing out of the Hydra gun and setting the rest of it back on a shelf, “Be sure not to leave it in any Roman baths.”

“One time!” He complains as they head out, “A guy leaves an experimental super science raygun in the fifth century _one_ time and he never hears the end of it!”

~~~

They go out drinking with Bucky and Steve; Clint is in Steve’s spare khaki shirt and trousers, tight in the arms and lose in the thighs but all of it is long enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s in second grade and out growing Barney’s patched up hand-me-downs. 

Bucky showed up in a blue peacoat that was down right dashing, along with that shy grin that _does_ something to Clint, and then he takes off the coat when they get to the bar.

Something something screen door, something something hurricane. 

He tries to pay attention to the conversation; he does! And he gets one or two embarrassing Commando stories that he is _definitely_ sharing with the class when he gets back, but Bucky is so damned distracting he keeps losing track of anything more than the sparkle in Bucky’s eyes and the hint of an honest to God dimple when Clint’s able to make him laugh.

Overall it’s one of the best two weeks of Clint’s life, and while he knows he’s going to see Steve and Bucky again, he’s a little melancholy over losing Peggy, they’ve bonded more than he thought possible and he’s going to miss her. 

~~~

He isn’t back in the 21st more than 10 minutes before Coulson sets down a dusty old folder in front of him. 

“What is this?” He says as he opens it and finds a note in Peggy’s handwriting, ‘ _I told you I would make you finish this.’_

It’s the AAR he told her he would finish before they ended up in 15th century France. 

Clint stares at it like it’s a snake about to bite him, “We don’t even _use_ this form anymore.”

“Finish it. I need to introduce you to your new partner on the Time Task Force.”

“What!? I don’t want a new partner. Tasha and I—”

“Natasha declined. Something about not being anyone’s lab experiment ever again; but don’t worry, I think we’ve found someone you can work with.”

“Who?” Clint asks, doubt professionally engraved in the word. 

“I rather think if anyone has room to complain…”

Clint jumps up from the table, “Peggy!? How— What? I— Hi! Um. Partner?” He finishes looking to Phil for confirmation, and when he nods Clint swoops Peggy into a hug, “ _Partners!”_

She whoops and laughs, letting him spin her around before slapping him on the shoulder, “Alright, alright. Enough of that. Put me down you oaf, you have a report to finish.”

He sets her down, “Aw, _Pegs—”_

“The sooner you get it done, the sooner I can brief you on your next mission,” Coulson interrupts. 

Clint huffs and sits back down, “ _Fine_.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Coulson says, “‘Vikings.’”

“Vikings?” Peggy says with interest, “Give me that,” she sits down next to Clint and grabs the folder, “We’ll get through this faster together.”

This is going to be _awesome._


End file.
